But suddenly he heard the discordant din of gunfire. The sound came again, closer now. Jay was with him. They were on the battlefield, together again, their movements synchronized, their thoughts one. All around them was the grit of sand and the searing relentless heat of the unforgiving desert.
Men yelled and orders were shouted. According to intel, the opposition was keeping children in a building they were using as their headquarters some one hundred yards away. It was to be a carefully orchestrated rescue, but something was wrong. He and Jay were crawling through thick black smoke, facing an enemy they could sense but couldn’t see.
No matter where they turned, their foes closed in on them from all sides. They couldn’t give up. They couldn’t give in.
They had lives to save.
All at once they rose above the deafening roar of bombs exploding and the gagging stench of war. Flying now, they could see their comrades down below where the war raged on.
But the war raged in the sky, too, for their worst nightmare had followed them. With a reprehensible depraved hunger to inflict unspeakable suffering, the beast drew closer, its intent as foul-smelling as its breath. They tried to outdistance it, to outmaneuver it, but it persisted. Their weapons useless, they had to rely on cunning and stamina and speed.
They were winded, nearly worn-out, but they couldn’t panic, couldn’t falter. They couldn’t give up. They had lives to save.
They escaped their pursuers, hiding for a moment behind the rubble of an old building. Suddenly, the area swarmed with people, a hundred, two hundred, more.
He and Jay became separated among the throngs. Desperate but unquestionably determined to find his war-brother, Cole methodically searched every face.
And then he saw him. Jay lay on the white sand, the front of his uniform red with blood. Cole clawed his way through the throngs to Jay’s side. Jay opened his eyes, looked into Cole’s, and whispered, “I’m counting on you.”
Before his eyes Jay faded like vapor on thin air.
Cole jolted awake. Sat up. Then held perfectly still. With his heart thundering in his chest, he tried to get his bearings.
The lamp was still on next to his bed, as was the TV across the room. He’d fallen asleep wearing his jeans.
He aimed the remote at the TV and pulled the chain on the antique lamp. Now that it was dark and quiet, he got out of bed and padded barefoot to the window. Drawing the curtain aside, he looked down upon the meandering river where reflections of a quarter moon danced on its rippling surface.
There was no war but for the one raging within him. It was a long time before his heart beat a normal rhythm.
He understood the first portion of his dream, for before he’d fallen asleep he’d stretched out on the bed with April’s kisses still fresh on his lips, her lush curves imprinted along the entire length of him. His body knew what it wanted. His heart wanted the same thing. Except for Jay’s final words, the second dream was identical to the dreams he’d had before Jay was killed. “I’m counting on you,” Jay had uttered in tonight’s dream.
A soldier relied on gut instinct, and Cole’s instincts screamed that his presence in Orchard Hill hadn’t been happenstance.
He knew that dreams were often wrought with images that could be interpreted many different ways, and misinterpreted, as well. There had been times in his life when aspects of his dreams had happened before his eyes. It had frightened him as a child, but he’d learned to pay attention to them.
Through his window, he saw a light in the sky, and followed a jet with his gaze until he lost it in the stars.
There was a part of Cole that would always be a soldier, maybe always had been. Perhaps that was why he’d been a loner much of his life.
He didn’t bank on dreams or on superstition. They were unreliable. A soldier relied on gut instinct.
Right now, his gut was on fire.
Anyone who didn’t know what gut instinct was had never been to war. His gut instinct had saved his comrades’ lives more than once. And his comrades had saved his. He didn’t need proof beyond that.
For nearly fifteen months, Cole had lived with the knowledge that Jay had died instead of him. Cole had dreamed of death before the ambush, but Jay had opted to follow his own instincts. Cole and Jay had been equals in every sense of the word. They thought alike, kept their wits about them at all times and believed that goodness would prevail—even though too often it seemed hopeless.
When the attack came, Jay was covering Cole, but seeing his best friend in the sights of the enemy, he’d charged ahead, rapidly firing his weapon. Others took up the battle. Intel had been right about the innocent children who were hostages. Because of Jay’s heroism, none of them had been harmed.
If not for Jay, Cole would have been the one who’d died that day. And all the people back home who’d loved Jay would have been spared their grief. Violet and Gracie would still have their father, April would still have her husband, and Jim and JoAnn Avery would still have their son.
Cole didn’t know why it hadn’t gone the other way. If it had, he wouldn’t have been half as missed.
Now, after fifteen months, Cole was dreaming again. April loved him. He hadn’t seen that coming, and yet his longing for her was so acute he would have given his life for one night like the one he’d dreamed he and April had.
Every instinct told him to resist. No matter what he wanted. What he needed. Until he understood why, he had to remain focused on the vow he’d made to himself and the promise he’d given his best friend.
April loved him.
Cole released all the breath he’d been holding. Drawing another, he knew resisting her was going to test every instinct he had.
* * *
April folded the last of Jay’s freshly laundered dress shirts and started sorting his ties. She pictured him tying his tie, and slipping it off. He’d had one of those physiques that looked good no matter what he wore. She closed her eyes, for she’d tried to do this without thinking, without remembering, but couldn’t.
Last summer a kindhearted eighty-two-year-old widow who’d lost her husband of sixty years had told April she would know when it was time to take this step. It was time. But it wasn’t easy.
She placed his suits loosely in an oblong box on her bed. Closing the lid, she began filling another with the shirts she’d folded, and then his ties.
Even after she’d made the decision to do this, she’d put it off another day. She’d finally begun this arduous undertaking yesterday afternoon. She hadn’t gotten far when the girls had begged to go to the park. She’d prepared a picnic lunch and had taken them to the playground and then to the hospital to see Noah and Lacey’s babies. The remainder of the task of going through Jay’s things had been left for today.
Now, on this pretty summer Tuesday, she was finishing what she’d started. She put all Jay’s sports T-shirts, college sweatshirts and jerseys in a box and stored it on the top shelf of her closet in the event Violet and Gracie or one of Jay’s brothers or sisters wanted them one day.
Next, she opened his top dresser drawer. Her fingers trembled as she brought out his wallet. Like she had so many times already, she brought one of his possessions to her nose and sniffed. The wallet smelled of fine leather; like everything else, it carried no lingering scent of Jay.
She opened the tri-fold, and leafed through photos of her and the girls. His driver’s license was still where he’d left it, as was the fifty-dollar bill he’d kept hidden in a secret sleeve.
Spotting a piece of paper in the same compartment, she withdrew the small square and carefully unfolded it. Her fingers went to her trembling lips as she read the note she’d tucked into Jay’s pocket before he left for work on their first wedding anniversary. She’d had no idea he’d saved this. Reading it again, she flung herself across her bed and cried the way she had the day she’d burned their mattress.
His casual wear was going to a local church group preparing for a missionary trip to the Appalachians. She was donating his dress clothes to a local nonprofit agency that helped the homeless and those living in halfway houses prepare for job interviews.
Now Jay’s portion of the closet and his dresser drawers were empty. She wondered if she would ever be able to use them. She felt empty, too, as if she was depleted of something vital. Reminding herself that doing this hadn’t made Jay’s death any more real or him any more gone, she changed her clothes and finger combed her hair then started for the door, only to stop, her feet rooted to the floor. For a moment, she actually considered putting all his things back where they’d been. But what good would it do? It wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing could do that.
Hoping she didn’t look as ravaged as she felt, she poked her head into the living room where Gracie and Violet were watching the last portion of their favorite animated movie. Finding them content and occupied, she carried the first box to her SUV. Careful to step around the small puddle left over from last night’s rain, she made trip after trip from her house to her vehicle.
Each time she returned to her bedroom for another armful, she looked at Jay’s robe hanging on the hook on the back of the door. She’d purposefully left it behind, and seeing it, touching it, just knowing it was there made her feel better somehow. It belonged here, a part of him, and here was where it would stay.
She had room in her car for only one more cardboard carton when she finally crossed paths with Cole. He’d arrived for work this morning at a few minutes after eight as he always did. They’d exchanged good mornings, and he’d drunk half a cup of coffee while Violet and Gracie told him all about the dog they’d played with in the park yesterday.
“Guess what his name was?” Grace had asked.
“Horse!” Violet retorted before Cole had a chance to guess. “He weighs more than both of us together!”
He’d been smiling when he glanced at April. She was the first to look away.
She wasn’t angry. Not anymore. She was sad. And she was so tired of feeling this way.
“What do you have there?” he asked her now from the middle of the sidewalk.
Rather than commenting on how tired he looked, she said, “Some things I’m donating.”
Again, she was the first to look away.
“Let me get that for you.” Leaving her no choice, he took the cumbersome box right out of her hands.
Eyeing all the others already stacked in the back of her SUV, he said, “You’re parting with Jay’s things?”
If only there hadn’t been such reverence in his deep voice. She sighed, and in lieu of an answer, she reclaimed the box and fit it into the last open slot. She pushed a button and they both stepped back as the hatch on her vehicle closed.
He looked at her, stared actually. Twice, he started to say something. Twice, he stopped.
Well, then. As they said in old movies, it was time to get this show on the road.
Bristling a little for no good reason, she said, “There’s a pitcher of fresh lemonade in the refrigerator. I bought more ginger ale as well. As soon as the girls’ movie is over, we’ll be on our way. If you get thirsty while we’re gone, help yourself to a cold beverage.”
She could feel his eyes on her as she started back toward the house, but he made no comment. Really, she thought, after Saturday night, what was left for him to say?
He’d admitted he had feelings for her, and had for a long time. But something was holding him back, and he was the only one who could break through the barrier he’d imposed.
And if he never does?
Closing her eyes, she sighed again. She’d grown weary of wretched thoughts like that one.
The girls were at the door suddenly. Yelling loud enough for everyone in the neighborhood to hear, they informed April that their movie was over. She hurried inside to get them ready to help her donate items their father didn’t need in heaven.
She’d known this emotional day would come.
It was time.
* * *
Walking out April’s door Saturday night had been the hardest thing Cole had ever done, more difficult even than starting a business from scratch or fighting a war. In those instances, he’d known his next move.
He’d told her he didn’t want things to be awkward between them. What was between them was awkward as hell.
They spent a good share of their day in the same house, but no matter how close they came physically, whether it was in a doorway or on the stairs or even outside, there was a chasm between them.
He couldn’t very well tell her he’d taken a giant step backward emotionally because his gut churned every time he came close to her. He needed to focus. It was like his old high school football coach had told him and his teammates after the last practice before every game. No dating, no sex the night before. They needed to keep a clear head. Every man knew sex was the ultimate distraction.
What a way to go. But this wasn’t some game. Until he figured out what the hell held him back, he needed to give April a wide berth.
He didn’t trust himself to tell her the reason. More accurately he didn’t trust her to accept his reason. She was a woman in love. God knew that was as distracting as the lure of sex.
She wasn’t happy about his new reserve.
She wasn’t impolite. But the camaraderie of the previous weeks was gone. She hadn’t asked him about any more of his animal associations. She no longer pressed him to tell her how he saw her. But she’d baked something again today, and she still smiled, although rarely at him; she still did the myriad things single mothers did. Earlier he’d heard her reading to Violet and Gracie in her soft lilting voice, and heard her encouraging them to read, to count and to pretend. She was preparing them for school while she got ready to return to her teaching career.
She’d boxed up Jay’s things. She was moving on with her life.
With or without Cole.
The girls seemed oblivious to the undercurrents that stretched like taut wires between their mother and their father’s best friend. Thank God for that, at least. They deserved a happy childhood. All children did.
Violet and Gracie were so open, so innocent and bright. One blonde, the other brown-haired, both were the perfect combinations of Jay and April.
They’d been wide-eyed with wonder yesterday when he’d told them that baby rabbits were called kittens, or kits, just like baby cats. While he’d had their attention he’d explained that kits generally left their nest when they were two weeks old. The rabbits Gracie and Violet had discovered had to be nearing that age.
The girls had looked at one another as they silently communicated in what April had once called “twin-speak.” And he’d known they understood that one day soon they would check on the rabbits and find the nest beneath the Daddy Tree deserted.
Cole missed talking to April, missed her quirky questions and amazing insights. This wasn’t easy for him. Hell, it was excruciating, for he yearned to drag her into his arms. He held back. He didn’t know why. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of him.
He was standing at his tailgate, attempting to change the carbide blade on his saw when April and the girls came out of the house again. Gracie and Violet wore shorts and sandals and sunglasses. Gracie carried a glittery purse and Violet wore a feather boa. Each girl’s hair was wound into a delicate-looking braid that encircled her head like a crown.
April’s hair waved long and loose halfway down her back, the sides pull
ed away from her face and secured with turquoise clasps. She wore a filmy lavender shirt and yellow shorts. He remembered when she’d asked him about his favorite color. He’d told her he didn’t have one. If she’d asked him today, he would have said it was whatever color she was wearing.
She didn’t ask him, though. And she wouldn’t. Not anymore. He missed that, too.
“Someone’s here, Mama,” Gracie said.
Everyone, including Cole, glanced at the man walking up the driveway. Violet hopped out of the car and stood beside her sister, who’d been, in her mother’s words, lollygagging.
“May I help you?” April asked, her tone friendly.
Since it would have been impolite to stare, Cole sized the man up quickly then returned to his task at the tailgate of his truck. Clean-cut, the man looked to be in his late thirties. Of medium build, he had sandy blond hair, and wore baggy chinos and a buttoned shirt. Just your average Joe.
He stopped several feet from April. “I’m Nathan Hampton. I’ve only recently joined Jake Nichols’s veterinarian practice. If I’m keeping you from an appointment, I can come back later.”
Cole fit the wrench over the nut holding the old blade in place and added polite and conscientious to his impressions of the man. Normally, he would have noticed similarities to some animal by now. Maybe he was losing the ability.
He feared that what he was losing was April.
“You’re not keeping us from an appointment,” she was saying. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Hampton?”
“Nathan,” he said.
The smile Nathan gave April left a bad taste in Cole’s mouth.
“My dog and I moved into the house down on the corner last week,” he said.
“You have a dog?” Violet was quick to ask.
Nathan Hampton was smiling as he answered. “I do. Her name is Roxie. She’s the reason I’m here.” He turned to April. “She was a rescue. A case of terrible neglect, but you’d never know it today. She’s the sweetest dog I’ve ever had.” He held his hand a few feet above the ground. “Roughly three years old, she’s about this tall and weighs thirty pounds. The only time her tail stops wagging is when she’s asleep or afraid.”
A Man 0f His Word (Round-The-Clock Brides Book 4) Page 15